Love Or The Absence Thereof
by PomegranateQueen
Summary: Ginny Weasley muses on love and intimacy. One shot. Written pre HBP.


**Title:** Love—Or The Absence Thereof

**Disclaimer:** All characters are property of J.K. Rowling, etc. (ie, NOT MINE)

**Summary:** Ginny Weasley muses on love and intimacy. One-shot.

**Warnings:** Vague-ish sexuality, angst

**Pre-fic Author's Note:**When I started this I wanted to do something for my two favorite ships (Harry/Ginny and Draco/Ginny), but this is what came out. Oh well, hope you all like it. Also, I wrote this pre-HBP.

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Sometimes love didn't really factor into it. Sure, she knew who she did love, but, somehow, _he_ just didn't factor into the equation as much as he once had. She knew who she fancied, but she certainly wasn't going to pursue him either. So she found herself settling for boys she simply liked and breaking it off once they believed they were in love with her. That was when she knew she had to stop being with them; when they'd gone as far as they could without her feeling like a complete slag and he wanted to be with her because he really did love her and would wait forever for her. 

Michael had been her fist experiment in actual romance. She had allowed his hands free roam over her body after a little while, but only, mostly, because it felt so nice to be worshiped that way. After about five months, he'd said the "L" word. They had been snogging in an unused broom cupboard and he had just come in a sticky mess all over the front of both their robes. Ginny had pulled away quickly, apologizing for suddenly remembering some revising she had forgotten to do and bolted, pell-mell, for Gryffindor Tower. She had been a blur of red hair and faded school robes that day. Had any one of the "Gryffindor Trio" been present as she ran directly from the portrait hole to the staircase leading to the girls' dorms, she would have been stopped. As it was, she had been allowed to proceed undeterred and uninterrupted to her dorm, where she sat on her four poster bed, curtains drawn, staring at absolutely nothing wondering just how many more things Tom was going to be right about in her life.

Tom had told her once, sometime around Valentine's Day of her first year, when she had written about accidentally walking into the wrong supposedly unused classroom and finding two older students panting heavily and moving together in a somewhat confusing rhythm that it had taken her a moment to figure out what they were doing (which turned out be each other), that love didn't matter. He had told her that one day, the boy would marry some other girl and the girl would marry some other boy and they would do the exact same thing to other people, no matter how in love they fancied themselves at that moment. Love didn't matter because even if you gave your heart to someone or trusted someone implicitly, you still had no guarantee that they would do the same with you. She had asked Tom if some girl had broken his heart. Tom had replied with a vague, "Yes, Ginerva, some _girl_." Later, she learned that his mother had been the one to break his heart.

Loathe as she was to admit that Tom Marvolo Riddle was right about _anything, _she would admit it about intimacy. She didn't love Michael, while he obviously did her. It upset her that she would do _things_ with him and still not love him. She didn't want to be that type of girl. Nor did she want to be the type of girl who played with boys' hearts. She had vowed then to slowly break things off, to slowly pull away from Michael so that he wouldn't love her.

Her plan was successful—more successful than she could've counted on. Of course, that could've had something to do with the sudden unattached-ness of one Cho Chang.

The time after Michael would've seen her lonely and melancholy, had it not been for the sudden excitement at the end of the year—though _that_ did leave her feeling quite morose to say the least.

She and Dean had owled back and forth as much as possible during the summer following her fourth year. She found that she genuinely liked Dean Thomas as a bloke and a friend and wouldn't mind having a little something more with him. Though she knew she would never love him, she really wouldn't mind having someone to kiss and someone to hold. Times were growing darker and she found herself needing to have someone to help her forget all the bad.

And Dean had done just that. They had been pleasantly together for over half of her fifth year. OWL induced mania had just began to eat away at the sanity of all fifth-years when Voldemort's annual Harry-attack had happened. Only this time, the attack seemed less centered on The Boy-Who-Lived and more on the six students who had been involved in the Department of Mysteries debacle the year before.

Harry had saved her life again when Voldemort had used a surprise attack by possessing her and infiltrating Hogwarts to send them all a message: Anyone who supported Albus Dumbledore would die a painful death at the hands of his Death Eaters when he had properly disposed of both Dumbledore and Harry Potter. Once she had opened her mouth and spewed out the words, Harry had grabbed her arm and looked her directly in the eye while whispering a spell under his breath. And then they had both been in her—both Harry and Voldemort. Harry had forced the Dark Lord from her and she had collapsed in his arms.

After that, OWLs had hardly seemed an issue. Dean's wonderful distraction factor had begun to grate on her nerves and she had broken things off with him. At the Leaving Feast, Seamus had approached her and asked if she were feeling alright and would it be all right if he owled her over the summer. She had replied positively to both.

When Harry's seventeenth birthday rolled around, there had been a blowout at The Burrow—as large as circumstances could allow, that is. Seamus had been there and they had taken a walk sometime in between dinner and presents. He had kissed her behind her father's workshop and they were together for the following six months. Seamus was the first boy she gave her body to fully and she knew, even while in the act, she didn't love him either.

And now, at the beginning of her own seventh year, with the Dark Lord finally defeated and the world beginning to seem right again, she knew she had only ever loved one boy, no matter who she shared her bed with. She had only ever loved Harry Potter.


End file.
